Another failed Pentagon audit. Socialist grifters. More tariffs.

Another failed Pentagon audit. Socialist grifters. More tariff lies.

Another failed audit at the Pentagon

Trump criticized the Biden administration for failing to get a clean audit of the Pentagon calling it evidence of ongoing mismanagement. Well the Pentagon just failed its eight consecutive audit and I don’t hear the president criticizing his Defense Secretary for mismanagement of the department’s billions. The failure does not even consider the possibility of fraud or missing funds. Rather it means auditors could not verify the accuracy of the Pentagon’s financial statements with enough confidence to issue a clean opinion. After eight unsuccessful audits, the results continue to raise questions about accountability, oversight and mismanagement. 

Today’s quiz: Who said “The lack of accountability and transparency at the Pentagon is simply unacceptable, yet Congress continues to pour more and more taxpayer dollars into the agency each year. No other federal agency would be allowed to operate this way. It’s past time to rein in wasteful spending on ineffective weapons programs, stop rewarding wealthy and powerful defense contractors, and restore fiscal discipline to the Pentagon. Every federal department is required to conduct an annual audit; however, it took years for the Pentagon to complete its first one in 2018, and after eight attempts, it still has not passed.” Answer: Ilhan Omar. 

Apparently auditing the Pentagon is no easy task. It is massive and auditors must review the consolidated financial statements of the entire department, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, and dozens of defense agencies. Here is what Military.com says: Auditors examine whether systems accurately track spending, assets, liabilities, and inventory. That includes everything from payroll and contracts to facilities, vehicles, aircraft, ships, and spare parts. The process also evaluates whether internal controls are strong enough to prevent errors and ensure reliable reporting. A clean audit opinion would signal that the Pentagon can consistently account for its resources and spending.” the FY 2024 National Defense Authorization Act requires the DOD to receive a clean audit opinion on its financial statements by no later than December 31, 2028. Lots of luck with that. Even if the agency fails to meet this requirement, it’s unlikely to change anything.

Remember in March the White House asked for $1.5 trillion for defense (or is it “war”) for its fiscal year 2027 budget? Want to bet that that budget will also fail to get a clean audit. Consider that the Pentagon doesn’t even know how much is being spent on the war with Iran thanks to its notoriously poor accounting records. In May, Jules Hurst, the assistant secretary for the Army and the Pentagon’s former comptroller, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that the war had cost about $29 billion. But a month earlier, U.S. officials “familiar with internal assessments” placed the cost at about $50 billion. That $21 billion dollar difference sounds like my struggle in undergraduate accounting to make the left side of the balance sheet the same as the right side.

Since Trump is so intent on ferreting out fraud in social programs, don’t you think he should take a look at Defense spending? As to that $1.5 trillion dollar request, the Congress should just approve last year’s budget amount plus an adjustment for inflation until the Pentagon can get its act together.

Just another socialist grifter

How can you tell a socialist is lying? His lips are moving. In the democrat primary in Michigan, another bogus working class socialist, Abdul El-Sayed, is running against an establishment democrat, Rep. Haley (I wonder if she was named after Alex Haley) Stevens. El-Sayed like all the democrat socialists is spouting the working class mantra about the evils of capitalism and giving power to the people. Right on! 

This is the socialist grift by another socialist grifter. As has been the case in every race, the working class reject the socialist while he is embraced by college educated whites. Polls are revealing. El-Sayed is up +7 with college-educated democrats. Stevens is up 22 points with likely non-college-educated voters. El-Sayed is +57 with voters who say they are socialists. And all that nonsense about racial equity spouted by the left? El-Sayed is winning white voters +12, whereas Stevens, who is white, is up an astounding +46 with black voters. Black voters can smell a grift from a mile away after growing up with Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. We know BS when we hear it. 

This is a replay of Maine where the axe-murder-Nazi-tattooed-socialist spouting Graham Platner said along with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren that he was part of the working class supporting a stridently progressive economic policy when in reality Susan Collins was way ahead in the polling of actual working class voters. Of course, the media is not calling out these grifters hoping that you can fool enough of the people enough of the time to get these poseurs elected.

More Tariff Fictions

How can you tell a Trump trade official is lying. His lips are moving. Remember when one of the many lies told by the president on tariffs was that we were being ripped off as evidence of deficits in the balance of trade with our trading partners? Never mind that no other country has the population and wealth to match our wealth. I have pointed out before that the only way for the balance of trade to be balanced is essentially for us to just stop trading. I also pointed out why was Trump putting tariffs on countries with which we had a trade surplus? Did that make any sense? Well, there he goes again when he hit Brazil with a 25 percent tariff on everything except – or course – beef and coffee. The president’s anti-trade trade representative Jamieson Greer announced the tariffs to counter “unfair trade practices.” However, later the reason given was “inadequate policing of deforestation” and that Brazilian courts had ordered “U.S. social media companies to take down certain political content.” Trump also wants Brazil to remove their tariffs on US ethanol and has used Brazil’s payment system as another justification for the new tariffs. The payment system, PIX is used by 90 percent of Brazilians and allows the transfer of funds on cellphones at no cost. It handles more transactions than all debt and credit cards combined. There’s the rub. The administrations says that PIX unfairly disadvantages Visa and Mastercard! Here again Trump’s mercantilism raises its head.

Brazil has vowed to retaliate. Its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says the tariffs are an attempt to influence the country’s election. Trump backed the former president Jair Bolsonaro was convicted for attempting to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula. Trump said of Bolsonaro’s trial Trump it “should not be happening”. “It is a witch-hunt that must end IMMEDIATELY!” Now in the upcoming election one of Bolsonaro’s sons is running against Lula. Lula’s office that the tariffs were the result of “a narrative constructed with the active collaboration of the Bolsonaro family” driven by electoral objectives.

Well the Brazilian people are not buying what Greer is selling. Polls show that the tariffs have strengthened Lula’s position over Bolsonaro and that the voters blame the Bolsonaros for the tariffs.